February
17, 2005Advisory:
This week's column contains adult language. And nothing is made-up.

Picture
this image: 18,000 women line up at Madison Square Garden in New York
City. They pay as much as $1,000 apiece to witness the spectacle. For
the audience warm-up, the women are bombarded with the word "Vagina!"
Soon, the Vulva Choir is singing the praises of their inner-vagina.

The play
features a series of vignettes, including one about a 13-year-old girl
who is plied with alcohol and raped -- by a woman. At the end, the girl
revels in her new-found liberation from heterosexuality: "I'll never
need to rely on a man. If it was a rape, it was a good rape."

This actually
happened on February 10, 2001. Nothing here is made-up. The play, known
as the Vagina Monologues, wins the prestigious OBIE Award. The
New York Times hails playwright Eve Ensler as "the Messiah heralding
the second wave of feminism."

Since
then, the Vagina Monologues has been staged in front of hundreds of thousands
of coeds at college campuses around the country. Listening to women talk
about their genitalia is their way of celebrating Valentine's Day. Some
of them wear self-reassuring T-shirts that say, "I love my vagina."

On September
13 last, feminist Eve Ensler invited former Playboy bunnie Gloria Steinem
and others to star in an event in New York called "Vaginas Vote,
Chicks Rock." The event was designed to encourage voter registration
among Democratic-leaning women. Here are a few gems from Ensler's address:

* "Are
there any registered vaginas in the house?" * "Step into your
vaginas and get the vagina vote out!"

Ensler's
event was successful. Seven weeks later, women turned out in record numbers.
Many of them voted for George W. Bush.

Most mental
health professionals would regard Miss Ensler's obsession with her crotch
as a treatable condition. But now, a whole generation of women has come
to believe that all manner of lewd and indecent behavior is acceptable
-- just so long as it can be justified with feminist buzz words such as
"liberation," "empowerment," and "choice."

Here are
some recent examples:

In California,
attorney Liana Johnsson reached this insight (note the liberation theme
here): "At some point, men's breasts became liberated and women's
didn't." So now Johnsson is pushing the California Legislature to
pass a law allowing women and girls to "drop their tops" at
California beaches and parks.

Growing
numbers of women enjoy viewing pornography, and now represent 30%
of all online porn visitors. Holly Moss, founder of Women In Adult, explains
this trend: "As women have more choices in life and purchasing power,
they are choosing what they want to see and how they want their porn."

Did you
spot the skillful use of both the "choice" and "power"
motifs in Miss Moss' remarks? But there's more. Last year a teenager marched
into her school cafeteria in South Hadley, Mass. wearing only a bra and
sweat pants. According to principal Melodie Goodwin, "We had girls
fall out of their shirts in the sixth grade." Now the Michael E.
Smith Middle School has tightened up its dress code.

Now, liberation
even extends to the Soccer Mom set. USA Today recently reported on mothers
who parade around the house with cleavage on full display and cook breakfast
for junior wearing three-inch heels. According to reporter Olivia Barker,
mom "doesn't want to check her sexuality at the picket-fence gate
anymore."

Finally,
let's not forget to mention those TV soft-porn hits like Sex and the City
and Desperate Housewives. No surprise, these shows are watched mostly
by women.

During
the former Reign of Patriarchy, men sometimes regarded women in terms
of their female anatomy. Most persons agreed that wasn't a very good thing.
But it happened.

Then feminism
came along and disposed of the Patriarchy. Men were told to stop objectifying
women.

So what
happened? Women began to objectify women.

Here's
the amazing part - many intelligent women became convinced that it was
good to be treated as sex objects. In fact, they were willing to part
with good money to see a play that celebrated the rape of a 13-year-old
girl.

In the
past, the sexual degradation of women was confined to the bedroom and
the brothel. But now, gender objectification permeates our culture. It
is flaunted at college campuses, on the Internet, on prime-time TV, and
during Super Bowl half-time shows. And it is done at the behest of women.